A Logical Formula for Love
by vgersix
Summary: A situation where Spock is in the early stages of pon farr, and Jim helps him take a cold water bath to try and alleviate some of the fever already coursing through him. Spock wonders at why this man should love him like he does, and Jim comes up with a very creative, totally logical answer. Post-TMP. Spock's second pon farr and they haven't had sex yet.
1. Chapter 1

Jim lowered him slowly into the cool bath, taking care not to let him slip. Spock was trembling so severely from the fever that he doubted his own ability to move without help, so he begrudgingly let Jim take control.

"How's that?" the captain asked in a soft whisper.

Spock let himself sink deeper into the cool water, even dunking his face under the surface to let it pull some of the feverish heat from his already burning cheeks. Some of it was the fever, yes, but he also had to admit to himself that at least part of it had to do with being completely naked like this in front of Jim, the human's gentle hands running along his back in little soothing circles.

He wished he could sink deeper into the water, as if into a great ocean, if only to hide his shame. But this was a bathtub, not an ocean, and he wasn't going anywhere. After only a few seconds, he had to come up for air - he had never been particularly good at holding his breath for long periods, and even less so now - as he trembled and shook and gasped in response to the turmoil raging within his fevered body.

Finally he pressed his hands into the floor of the bathtub, pulling his face free of the soothing water to take a breath.

"It is helping," he replied, tucking his knees underneath his body to settle back into a more comfortable position.

It seemed as if Jim's hands were everywhere, one running along Spock's shoulder in a soft caress, the other tucking a piece of dripping hair behind his ear.

It struck Spock suddenly how unlikely, how unbelievable this all was. He shifted his weight to sit back in the water, pulling his knees up in front of his body and wrapping his arms around them. The thing about fever, in Spock's experience, was that one always felt simultaneously too cold _and_ too hot. He was burning up inside, but the cold water had already caused him to start shivering.

But again, the fever was not the only cause for this reaction.

"Why do you love me?" He had not quite intended to say it out loud, but that was the trouble with the pon farr - it made you do things you otherwise might not have. He wished, irrationally, that he could take back the words the moment they exited his mouth.

Jim's hands came to a stop, then moved away entirely; one of them coming to rest on the edge of the tub.

"What did you just say?" Jim said, dumbfounded.

Spock looked up at him over wet knees, eyelashes heavy with water droplets.

"Why?" Spock asked again. "I can think of no logical reason for your willingness to engage in this endeavor. I am not yet in the final stage of the pon farr, I am not yet..." he faltered, voice catching in his throat at the thought of what was to come. "I am not yet ready to mate. Your presence here is not... required."

"Oh it's not, is it?" Jim said, raising one eyebrow in a playful expression of flirtation with which Spock had become quite familiar of late. It induced a reaction in him that was almost entirely alien - his sex organ twitched between his thighs, causing him to hug his legs even closer to his now quaking body.

Jim chuckled, apparently finding this all very amusing. He raised one hand and began combing Spock's bedraggled hair between deft fingers, smoothing it back into place.

He leaned in suddenly, whispering softly into one now very green ear - "What is required, Spock, is that I do everything I can to help you through this. So that's what I'm going to do." He leaned back just far enough to make eye contact. "Got it?"

Spock nodded, unable to speak. His _t'hy'la_ was so close, and Spock burned within; something deep inside of him crying out to seal the fledgling lifebond it sensed in Jim.

"Anyway," Jim said, lifting Spock's chin with one well-placed finger, "It's simple logic - why I love you. It's basic mathematics."

"Mathematics?" was all Spock could say.

"Yeah," Jim said casually. "A simple equation. I mean, Spock, I must admit I'm a little confused - I thought math was supposed to be your strong point."

"I..." Spock stammered, unable to fully articulate his thoughts with Jim's face this close to his own. "I do not understand."

"Well," Jim sat back, eyeing Spock up and down as if appraising what he saw before him. Spock's cheeks burned a little greener and this time it definitely had nothing to do with the blood fever.

"It's the slope of your shoulder times the angle of your neck." As he spoke, Jim trailed one finger along Spock's shoulder, across his chest, and up the line of his throat. "The depth of your eyes," here Jim stroked a featherlight touch across Spock's temple, "plus the width of your lips."

Jim pressed the index finger against Spock's now pliant lips. Spock sighed at the touch, willing himself not to take the finger into his mouth.

"Oh, and did I forget to mention?" Jim leaned in close, pressing a chaste kiss on Spock's lips, before pulling back to smile with that characteristic warmth and adoration.

"Wha-" Spock managed to say, "What did you forget?"

Jim chuckled, "Oh, well - just the most important parts of the equation... the sum of your incomparable intelligence plus the totality of your compassion and honesty and commitment to the pursuit of knowledge. All divided by your truly astounding ability to quote Shakespeare in a way that will always, without fail, bring me utterly to my knees with love for you."

He looked up at Spock with that gleam of mischief in his eye that made Spock avert his eyes in embarrassment. That this man should love him so, should speak of him so highly, was impossible to process. It should not be. Joke though he might about this supposed mathematical formula, there was no quantifiable reason for Jim's obvious affection for him.

But that, Spock knew from experience, made it no less real, no less lasting, and no less wonderful.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim half carried Spock to the bed, easing him down into the soft blankets and pulling the coverlet over his naked body, before returning to the fresher to hang the towel and tap off lights.

As Spock settled deep into the blankets, burying his face in a soft pillow, he listened to the soft hum of the engines in the wall. The low, multicolored lights of the traditional Vulcan sculpture in the corner of the room shone dim, casting the space in long shadows. His breathing slowed, and a sense of calm gradually took over in the wake of the trembling anxiety that had troubled him before. He could not deny the comfort he took in these simple trappings – the warm blankets, the soft pillow, the sensation of being wrapped up in the coverings; protected.

Jim returned from the other room, a glass of water and a plate of something in hand.

"Here," he said, "You should try to eat something. You haven't eaten all day."

Spock rolled over in bed, sitting up against the pillows. He did not argue. Jim was right, and now that he had directed his attention to it, a gnawing hunger twisted in his belly.

He took a sip of the water, and accepted a wheat cracker directly into his mouth from Jim's own hand. At any other time, perhaps he would have recoiled at being hand fed like an incompetent child, but at the moment he did not have it in him to protest. After the momentary reprieve he had initially experienced from the comforting surroundings of his own quarters, his own bed, he now felt the undeniable twinge of anxiety pressing in again at the corners of his mind.

He chewed the cracker and accepted another, almost eagerly. He was quite hungry, after all.

Jim smiled. "Would you like something else? Maybe some of that soup you like?"

"Yes," Spock nodded. "Perhaps I could eat some."

"Good," said Jim, stooping to kiss Spock's forehead before disappearing into the other room again. Spock listened to the sound of the food synthesizer working, and leaned back into the pillows, closing his eyes. The anxious feeling was growing again, and concentrate though he might, he found himself unable to suppress it.

The synthesizer had fallen silent. Spock opened his eyes to find Jim standing across the room, a tray laden with a bowl of plomeek soup and a hunk of bread in his hands. The man's face was a mixture of surprise and concern.

"Ah, Spock?"

"Jim?" Spock said, his voice trembling with the renewed tremor now shuddering through his body again. "Is something wrong?"

Jim seemed to mentally shake himself, and approached the side of the bed, setting down the tray on the night stand. "No, Spock it's fine."

Only now did Spock glance down, intending to smooth the coverlet. Instead, he was shocked to realize his sexual organ was misbehaving again. He had effectively accomplished something he once heard Jim lightheartedly refer to as, 'pitching a tent.'

His knees impulsively jumped to his chest again, and he wrapped his arms around them as he had done before in the tub. His cheeks burned green and he hid his face in the blanket. "Ah—I am sorry, Jim! I did not mean to—" he stammered, humiliated.

Jim chuckled at his side, dipping a spoon into the soup. "It's okay, Spock. We knew that was going to happen eventually, didn't we?"

Spock nodded furiously, his face still pressed hard into his trembling knees. "Yes," he said, his voice muffled in the blankets. "But not yet—it is not yet time…"

He could hear the sound of Jim shuffling dishes around, and glanced over to see the captain placing a cover over the bowl of soup. Jim turned to him then, smiling warmly, before sitting down on the edge of the bed. He bent over, tugging out of his boots, and shifted closer, rolling over onto one side to face Spock.

"Spock," he said softly, "I know this is all… a little overwhelming for you."

Spock hugged his knees closer, now visibly quaking with nerves. Inwardly, he cursed his own body, that it should betray him like this, that he should be so completely incapable of his usual calm and composure, that his penis and his own biological imperative should have so much sway over his involuntary bodily reactions. It went against everything being Vulcan represented – control, logic, the importance of the mind over the body – and yet, he knew, this was perhaps the most Vulcan imperative of all. He could not ignore it and he could not avoid it. It was happening and the alternative was a slow and painful death by adrenaline overload.

And then when he thought things could not possibly get any worse, he began to cry.

Jim's arms went around him and pulled Spock close, tucking his face into the curve of Jim's shoulder. "Hey now, we don't need any of that…" he said, rubbing Spock's back in a steady, comforting motion. "Shhhh…"

His breath came in gasps, and he buried his face in Jim's shoulder as if he could melt into it, never to be seen again. That he should feel so vulnerable and ashamed even now, after so many years of calling this man his friend – after clasping hands and saying out loud in so many words exactly how they felt for one another –that he should still fear this, after everything they had shared already? It was illogical.

But of course this was an entirely new and different thing – a thing that Spock had dreaded his entire life.

He had never craved sex the way so many others seemed too, especially the humans that surrounded him in his everyday life on the Enterprise. And far from passing judgment against them for their wants and desires, he simply never could relate to the drive. It was an alien thing. He had no interest in any of it.

Until the pon farr. Until that biological imperative took over every other bodily system, cancelling out every other need.

He hated it. The entire affair. It was disgusting. Un-Vulcan. Unseemly.

"Spock?"

He looked up to find Jim watching him, a concerned expression on his face, his hazel eyes gleaming in the soft light. "Are you all right?"

"No," he managed to say in a shaky whisper. "I mean, yes."

Jim cocked one doubtful eyebrow in reply.

"That is," Spock struggled to find the correct words. "I am not, but I shall be. Allow me a moment to compose myself, please."

"Well," Jim said, "Why don't you try eating some of this soup while you get composed?"

So they sat there, huddled together in bed, while Jim fed him soup and Spock gradually stopped shaking.


End file.
